Bitter Fruit
by BellaWriter7
Summary: Age of Eric contest entry. 1490s Spain brings the Inquisition to Seville and monarchies to the vampires. My answer to the questions of why Eric doesn't want to advance in the hierarchy & why he can't quit for Sookie. Rated M for lemons/violence.


**The Age of Eric Contest**

**Title:** Bitter Fruit

**Pen name:** BellaWriter7

**Time Period:** 15th Century Spain/Spanish Inquisition (1490 Seville to be exact)

**Characters:** Eric, Sophie-Ann, the Berts, Felipe de Castro

**Word Count:** 11,962

**Disclaimer:** Charlaine Harris owns Eric and his vampy brethren. I'm just putting them in a different time and place. Also, this story is rated M for a reason. There's some lemony goodness (or should I say orangey goodness—you'll understand why soon), but also some (appropriate for the time and place) violence. There's mention of sexual abuse, and main characters experience physical violence. Just so you know.

A few terms you'll need to know:

**The Bird of Truth:** A Spanish fairy tale about two abandoned children who are helped on their way back to their father the king by a special white bird.

_**Carajo:**_ Spanish for "Dammit."

_**Cierto:**_ Spanish for "Certainly."

_**Hada**_**:** Spanish for "fairy." _Mi pequeña hada_ means "my little fairy."

**Lucheza:** (from Wikipedia) a female with the body of an owl who takes away the souls of the dead. It's said that if someone whistles and the Lechuza answers, death is near. Even today, superstitious people who are dying will say they 'Hear the wings of Lechuza,' meaning death is near.

_**Sobrenatural**_**:** Means what it sounds like. Spanish for "supernatural."

**

* * *

A/N:** This is an off-shoot of my multi-chapter fic, Healing Blood. You will see reference to one original character created for that fic, but you'll be able to understand the story fine without knowing him. Huge thanks to my beta moxie mo, without whom I couldn't have finished on time and under word count. It was a close call!

And thank you also to FF reader LauraB, who corrected the Spanish in Healing Blood and read through this story for cultural accuracy. _Muchas gracias_! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

* * *

.

**Bitter Fruit**

. .

. .

Ah, Sevilla.

Erick drew the heavy velvet curtains from the bed frame, flicked open the shutters with a turn of his wrist and stole onto the balcony. From the tiny plastered overhang—quickly eclipsed by the vampire's massive frame—the smells of the city embraced him, warming and opening in the heat of the dawning May night: The metallic scent of the Guadalquivir River, the filth of the humans slopped onto the street below, the savory odors of the human's evening meals bubbling on fires. And coating it all, tinged with a whisper of jasmine, were the orange blossoms. They choked out all the rest.

Leaning forward onto the wrought iron railing, he looked past the oblique shape of the tall, plastered buildings, past the arm of the Guadalquivir that separated the Gypsy neighborhood of Triana from the city center, beyond construction of Sevilla Cathedral. His focus was on the fringe of the orange groves silhouetted on the horizon, black against the oranges and purples of twilight.

He felt himself relax at the sight. It had been that image that had greeted him, on and off, for a half century. Never in his undead life did he think he would be in one place for 50 years, let alone that he would rise in the comfort of linen and velvet. When he'd been trapped with Appius for those first few centuries, he'd learned well that vampires were nomads, scavengers who went to ground at the greying of the night. It wasn't until Jacobi that he'd lived indoors, that he didn't rise covered in dirt and grime.

Now, he only woke to the scent of human grime, he thought smugly. He'd accomplished this semi-permanent life through trial and error. There had been many humans who had had to be drained when they questioned why he did not age as the humans around him did. Now he kept an exceedingly low profile. He was not trapped in his nest—far from it—but he was careful to fly from the window late at night when most humans had settled inside, careful to glamour those who shared his corral-style communal home. And then there were the occasional half decades or more he spent in other parts of the countryside—in Granada or Cordoba—before settling elsewhere in the city.

But he always returned to Sevilla, rich as it was with other _sobrenaturales_ who were busy keeping their own secrets. The hateful _Lobishome_—Galician werewolves who had marauded like Visigoths into Sevilla a century ago. The shifters who lived in secret, masquerading as birds and snakes tricking the humans and telling them stories. He scoffed. The Bird of Truth indeed. So self-important and self-contained, those shifters.

And then the fairies. Ah the fairies. Erick smiled and licked his lips, a flavor lingering there. Hard to catch but so worth it. He closed his eyes and thought back to the last full fairy he'd had. He'd taken her against the wall of a darkened street and fucked her, growing more and more crazy with her scent until he bit. And bit again. And again. Until all that was left _were_ bits of her. And bloodied linen.

He chuckled, remembering how the humans had grown hysterical, wondering if an animal had invaded their streets. He'd retreated to the orange groves and worked off his high surrounded by the blooms.

If they only knew.

This was the wonder of the modern metropolis, he thought. When he'd been turned a half a millennium ago, the largest encampments around castles and manors had been a few thousand people. But this city—a city! he thought, still startled by the world's growth while he'd been living in woods and preying on travelers—thousands upon thousands of humans moved about witlessly.

He smiled to himself. After the centuries of torture and bloodlust, his existence had calmed. He would always love a good fight and there was always some warring nest that would welcome him taking up arms in their cause should he so desire—especially as vampires flocked to the growing human population. He watched the humans scurry and cry on the street below. Gazelles. More and more nests had moved to the city, jockeying for control.

The vampire King of Wallachia had made this infinitely worse. Erick scoffed. How many noblemen had been turned over the centuries? And yet this Vlad, this Dracul, began holding court. In less than a decade, he had turned Wallachia from disorganized in-fighting among dozens of nests to an ordered kingdom. Word had spread quickly that any vampire entering Dracul's territory must check in with him. He punished vampires for breaking his rules—mostly for taking more than their fair share of food—and he required the vampires who settled in his area to swear fealty or go to rest on a bed of stakes. Sometimes with a heavy weight placed on their chests by his Renfeld.

And Dracul was gathering forces. Word was that he was planning a raid on Hungary. Vampires there were rushing to organize their forces and consolidate their power under one ruler.

Erick sometimes wondered what it would be like to serve in Dracul's army. For all Dracul's arrogance, he had done for the whole of vampire society what only isolated vampires had accomplished before: He rose in a bed. He lived as a king. He controlled mortals. He did not scavenge and go to ground. He was a god among humans. Erick felt his chest fill with pride.

That didn't mean he wanted to be part of the new vampire court in Sevilla, though.

It seemed the night of reckoning had arrived, however. He'd been summoned by the newly installed king of Andalusia, Theodoric the Visigoth, to swear fealty. It didn't surprise him. The fights for the region had been long and bloody, and strong, ancient vampires had me their final ends in an attempt to wrest power. Erick had stayed out of the skirmishes for control—wisely, he thought. Being on the wrong side was a sure path to final death. The only surprise was that the peace had lasted long enough for one ruler to summon the area vampires.

And this Theodoric, he was vicious. Erick hadn't been there, but he'd heard that Theodoric had kept his last rival, the Moor Tariq bin Nusair, alive for a month, bleeding him and taunting him with silver and the blood of a young half-fairy until he begged for final death. Then Theodoric had glutted himself on the half-fairy in front of his rival, draining her and throwing her empty body on top of bin Nusair and leaving him in the courtyard of his court for the sun to do the cleaning up.

Erick knew better than to cross Theodoric.

_It's a new era,_ Erick thought as he sucked in more of the sweet scent of the blooms, bending deeply at the waist so his elbows could rest on the frame of the balcony.

It was too bad. For all the in-fighting and scavenging among his kind, Erick had liked his role in this world. He'd worked hard to perfect his harmless human persona. He'd convinced the humans he was a traveling northerner. The locals called him el Rubio—the Blond—which amused Erick, seeing as Sevilla was a city of such human cacophony: Moors and Jews and Gypsies and descendants of Visigoths and Vandals.

Humans made such a show of their superficial differences. As far as he could tell, all their blood tasted the same. There couldn't be that much of a divide between them. But try telling the humans that. Just a few years back, they'd installed a Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition here. That was a year after six humans had been burned at the stake for being unrepentant Jews.

_I guess it's a dangerous time for humans and vampires,_ Erick thought. The humans were of no consequence to him, though. He only wanted to keep his human and her alluring blood. The rest of them could be strung up, burned, lashed. He found it amusing that, for all the viciousness of the Inquisition, decorum dictated that no blood be spilled when the humans were interrogated. Erick smirked. Vampires they weren't.

His gaze returned to the horizon and the orange groves and he forced himself to stretch slowly, lazily. In a few hours, the king would no doubt alter his existence. In the meantime, he would enjoy himself. Maybe he could convince his human to drip the juices of an orange over his body and lick it off again. He smiled and his fangs glinted softly in the dulling light. Bitter and blood oranges. Erick only wanted her to feed off the blood oranges in his presence, though they were an exotic treat brought in from the Mediterranean. Something about the blood oranges' dark color pooling in the cradle of his hips, tangling it in the soft hairs there made him hard.

A hand snaked into Eric's codpiece and braies, the tights men wore, palming his growing cock. She smelled like night-blooming jasmine and earth and sweat. Eric growled.

"_Mi churumbel._" _My boy. _Her voice was low, throaty, laughing as it always was when she came to him like this. As she had aged, she'd begun teasing Erick that he could pass as her son.

Erick let out a laugh through his nose. Her small, perfect breasts pressed into his upper back, for she was only a few inches shorter than Erick himself. Her arm snaked around him, reaching under the linen and groping his chest as the she continued to move her hand efficiently, her fingers calibrated to provide just the right pressure. He turned his head slightly and hissed, bucking his hips against her palm.

"_Mi nena_," he murmured, a wicked lilt to his voice. _My baby._ Compared to his nearly five centuries, her 40 years made her an infant.

She chuckled lowly and scratched a nail over his nipple in a practiced, confident way. She kissed the thin linen of his chemise below his thick shoulders. Her thumb worked over the tip of his cock and played with the sensitive underside.

Before he could groan and alert the humans below to his presence, he spun around, seizing her wide hips in his hands, digging his fingers in to keep her there. She would return to her work soon. He made a disgusted noise that turned to a grunt of pleasure as her hand continued to massage him through the fabric of his tights.

The human and the vampire smirked at each other and Erick was pleased with what he saw. His Magdalena's hair flowed in ebony waves over her shoulders and down her back, stopping just above where his hands held her. The olive of her skin was darker than last night. Perhaps she'd spent part of her day in the sun, away from work. The thought pleased him. The little birthmark under her left eye crinkled as she smiled. Her obsidian eyes were weary, her smile not quite reaching them.

He lowered his head to her neck, licking and sucking, taking in her scent as it mingled with the orange blossoms and... the scent of men. Multiple men. And a shifter.

He pulled back and Magdalena pulled a few gold coins from the crevice between her breasts. She placed them in Erick's palm. "How many?" he asked, his gaze darkening.

Her only answer was to pull loose his codpiece and release him into the warm night air. Her thumb circled his tip again, spreading his wetness, and Erick pulled back to watch her eyes, narrowed and mirthful. _My Magdalena,_ he thought angrily, feeling his blood lust rise.

She leaned in and kissed and sucked his chest, biting softly on his nipples as Erick palmed her thick hair. Her hand moved faster, tugging and twisting in deliberate strokes, rocking into him in the way she knew he loved. He dug his fingers into her hair, tugging her head back so he could nip at her pulse, teasing himself more than her. Her other hand reached down and cupped his balls, stroking and moving behind to rub in a way that made Erick growl. Her breath came fast, Erick noted. She grasped a little tighter and his fangs slid down, his eyes drawn immediately to Magdalena's long dusky neck. He watched as her pupils dilated, her lips parted and her pulse ran faster under her olive skin.

"How many?" he bit out again, his finger tracing the path of her blood. His blood. _Mine_.

Magdalena looked up at him with shrewd eyes. She would not concede love for Erick. When she was a child, Magdalena had dreamt of moving to the country with Soledad, her "cousin" and another bastard child born at the whorehouse. When they were young and huddled together under an orange tree late at night to escape their mothers' work, Soledad would tell stories of their future: Magdalena would make beautiful dresses and Soledad would grow and sell food at the market. They would have their very own orange tree, Soledad would murmur, twirling an orange blossom between her fingers. It would always have large, plump fruit on it.

Magdalena worked her fingers expertly, watching as Erick's body began to shake under her. She moved her free hand to his chest and kissed next to it. She smiled as Eric closed his eyes and pulled her to him. She pulled back enough so that when his balls pulled up tight, he would have room to release onto the outer shell of her dress—easily removed and replaced with another. She eyed him, her hard gaze softening around the edges. He really was beautiful, she recognized in some small part of her mind. His mouth was slightly ajar. Even his fangs poking out did nothing to cool the hot coil winding in her belly. In some ways he was so unlike the fat and unclean men who'd used her.

But not in this way. He needed release. And it was her duty to give it to him.

Magdalena had been using her myriad talents for years when Erick first appeared on her doorstep. She'd been 16 and had been working as a whore for three years—but she'd worked for her mother for years before that.

It had started innocently enough. Magdalena's mother, Preciosa, had recognized Magdalena's gift when she was very young. She had suspected it, but it was oly confirmed when Preciosa came upon a crying 5-year-old Magdalena one day, and what followed the next. Preciosa had been in a good mood that day. She had spent it in the sunshine, and had had enough men that night to quit early. She'd planned to buy Magdalena a length of ribbon with the extra earnings. But Magdalena had insisted that Preciosa was upset.

"You're crying, _mami_," Magdalena had said, and put her hand on Preciosa's dry cheek. "Don't cry."

It wasn't until the next day that she knew. On the way to buy Magdalena's ribbon, she'd been attacked by a thug and robbed, and she found herself sobbing in the market. Sobbing, just as her daughter had predicted and the revelation had burned through her. Magdalena had the _chispa_, the essential spark. Though Preciosa herself was _hada_, those rare, beautiful creatures, the _chispa_ had bypassed her. But here it was in her little girl. She remembered thinking what at gift it was, and that it would make them rich.

And so Preciosa taught Magdalena its value, requiring her daughter to stay outside her working chamber until the man's grunts and yells had died away. As soon as it was done, Magdalena would enter. Magdalena couldn't remember a time when she didn't know what a male looked like unclothed and limp—and she couldn't escape the image of her mother, naked or semi-undressed, panting and pink cheeked and unwilling to meet her daughter's confused gaze. Magdalena tried to focus only on their eyes. And then the funny pictures would come—of wealth or ruin, of swindles and death. She would tell the men and they would give her mother a few extra pieces of silver.

Her mother had bought Magdalena her first length of beautiful velvet with that silver.

And so it was that when Magdalena was 13, her breasts budding and painful, her legs long and coltish, her hips barely swelling, that she had entered her mother's work chamber and laid eyes on the large balding man with the pug nose. She'd recognized him from previous visits and talk in the house. Like many of her mother's men, he was a man of position. He had a wife and three mistresses and still he enjoyed the thrill of mastering more women. On this occasion, he'd looked at Magdalena with eyes like rough, unwanted hands and threatened to turn Preciosa in to the authorities for fornication if he did not give Magdalena to him for the night.

Preciosa had punched him and was trying to tell Magdalena to run when he'd wrapped his thick hand around Magdalena's mother's neck and squeezed until her eyes closed. Then he'd turned to Magdalena and held her down, taking her innocence. Her only solace was that she had seen into his eyes as he tore into her body that he would contract a mysterious illness that made his cock thicken and ooze, and drive him to madness. She'd smiled evilly and told him his future was one worthy of him.

When her mother had coughed back to life, Magdalena had stolen her gold for the night and run to the orange fields.

Erick groaned and clutched her closer, and Magdalena stiffened as if from a slap.

"Return to me, lover," Erick murmured, and buried his face in her hair.

She opened her eyes and pulled back to look at him. She saw... Her smile returned, a throaty laugh fighting through her memories. His eyes were deep lapis with lust and in them she saw... Oh. He would spread her legs and nuzzle and lick her until she surrendered to him with breathless pleas. He would be just the right mix of rough and tender. He would focus on her. He... cared about her... her pleasure. As she had felt the night he had first walked into her brothel, she was surprised, and her body tingled with an unknown want.

She worked her hand faster, jutting her chin up and smiling, feeling the power coursing through her. If he were a human man, he would be panting now. He would be muttering and groaning. Erick, of course, had more control, more stamina than any man she'd ever met, human or _sobrenatural_. Despite herself she felt herself wetting the linen between her legs.

She knew now that he'd wanted blood more than sex that first night. He'd scanned the room upon his entrance. When he'd gotten to her, she'd seen the way he would come to view her. She'd seen her body growing broader, his hand on her naked hip, seen her nipples tighten under his mouth, seen his fangs glisten. But most surprising of all, she'd heard... She'd heard her own cries of pleasure. It had shocked her. She'd never heard a woman moan in pleasure, not genuinely. She'd seen that _she_ would want _him_.

She had found herself stepping forward and offering herself. She never offered herself.

Abruptly, Magdalena stepped away from Erick, laughing thickly and leaning up to kiss his lips, licking a fang. She relished his growl of pleasure. She led him by the cock into their chamber and their bed. She smiled and her eyes glinted in a way that Erick knew well. She was anxious for him to finish, to complete her work. He smiled fangily. He would coax her passion from her.

She began lowering herself to the ground and Erick's cock twitched with promise.

"No," he grunted and turned her, tossing her on the bed as if she were light as a square of cloth. He laughed as Magdalena's eyes flashed—fear smothering the flickering inkling of desire. He was... so big. She glanced down and watched as her skirts and chemise bunched and overflowed his big hands. Watched as her thighs were revealed and then her private linens. It was he that lowered to one knee, leaning his long body over until his fangs just grazed her thighs, his eyes never leaving hers.

He never knew what future she saw for him. She refused to say most of the time, unless she determined that he would somehow benefit. He knew only that every encounter between them began the same way. Her eyes started weary and hardened, with her doing her best to bring him to release without undressing or looking at him. Then her gaze would turn frightened. He watched the terror flash in her eyes as he inched toward the wet linens between her legs. She loved that he was aggressive—and she was terrified of it, terrified this would be the time he would turn, go out of control. Be just like all the other men.

He breathed deep her nascent arousal, nurturing more and more from her as he put his mouth over her cloth-covered sex. He watched as she lay still, not touching him, only watching and breathing hard. He always got the sense that she was trying to decide whether to yield or run. He knew she would stay. She always stayed.

He sucked, adding his own saliva to the wet cloth. Her scent filled his nostrils, rivaling the orange blossoms for its headiness. Her head flipped back onto the bed, watching the ceiling, her body still. Her hands fisted the velvet between her fingers.

"_Mi pequeña hada_," he growled into her flesh and felt her shiver, the tremor transmitted to his cock. "Yield to me."

He ran a hand down her thigh and flung it over his shoulder. He buried his face in her flesh and fabric, enjoying the fact that this secret part of her—this part that had smelled of countless men when he'd come to her that first time—smelled of nothing but her and him. She had promised him this. She would continue her work, masquerading as a whore to sell her sight. And when she couldn't escape a client's advances, she would suck them. But she saved her sex for him.

He rumbled against her slickening folds and sucked at her bundle of nerves through the cloth, his tongue pressing the thin material into her. His hand ghosted up her ribs and tore at her bodice, releasing her small handful of a breast. As he suspected, the brown, hard nub of her nipple was already straining into his palm. His cock jumped.

She could lie to herself about her arousal, he thought as he teased her nipple with his thumb and sucked her bundle of nerves. But her body didn't lie. And soon... Soon she would want him as desperately as he had come to rely on her—

"_Ay Dios mío_," she whispered and suddenly her hand was in his hair. He glanced up and a flame burst in her eyes and her throaty sighs began. As it always was. Not the first night. Not for many nights after that. But eventually. Erick had returned to Magdalena over and over again, fed from her and fucked her and used a whole purse of gold before she'd first—

"_Ay_... Erick," she panted. Her hips thrust. Those fingers that were so expert in bringing men off fumbled awkwardly to remove her own underthings.

Sweat broke out across Magdalena's skin, the tender flesh itching from underneath. She squirmed, so sensitive. Her back began arching rhythmically, like a cat, and her sobs grew to sighs. It had been more than two decades since that first night but she always fought against the sensation at first.

She wanted it, she reminded herself. It would feel like she was being tickled from the inside out, and that coil that was building in her belly would spring and transport her out of Triana, out of Sevilla, out of her life and her past and into a wild grove of orange trees where she and Erick could lay in the sun and feed themselves and dine on one another. It would feel—she threaded her fingers into Erick's hair desperately and moved herself against his mouth—it would be amazing.

He added two fingers to her and curled them. She felt them circling, circling in a rhythm she'd never felt before and was sure she'd never find again. She prayed. His lips were firm, his sucks sharp and then soft, his large mouth able to engulf all of her and then narrow to a point of concentration that made her nipples tingle and her thighs spasm.

She groaned and then laughed. He'd done this to her. Over and over. He'd even spent a purse of gold to teach her to come. And now... now he could call it from her whenever he wanted. She wanted no master and fought against him—but she could admit that he'd mastered her body in a way no man had ever desired to do.

She wanted him, desperately.

"_Mi pequeña hada_," he chanted. "_Mi_ _Magdalena_. Cum for me. Now, _mi Magdalena_." She felt his words against her soaked folds.

And when he crooked his neck to the side and sucked her skin where thigh met sex, she groaned, the coil screwing in on itself so tight she thought she might die if he didn't give her release.

His finger curled. Her hips bucked. He bit and pulled on the wound.

The coil snapped and Magdalena laughed loud as her orgasm ripped through her. "_Mi vampiro_... Erick. _Ay... Mi Erick..._" she murmured and laughed, bawdy.

Just then he appeared next to her on the bed, his quick fingers undoing her bodice and tugging the layers of fabric out of the way. She would have helped but for her liquified bones. Instead she watched through hazy eyes as he stripped her and then watched with hunger as he stripped his hose and linen chemise and laid out next to her. He ran a large hand from her sensitive breast to her ribs and across the swell of her hips.

He loved her body. She opened it to him, becoming bolder in her passion now. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself hard into him, pushing him until he was on his back.

She straddled him in the dark and lowered herself inch by delicious inch onto him, a blush darkening her skin. When she settled on his hips, she circled hers, watching his eyes and his fangs flash in the light of the oil lamp. He bucked his hips into her, and when she leaned back it felt even better. He found her secret spot inside, the spot he'd discovered. No one else had sought it. She had not found it with her own hands. It was his.

She rested her hands on his thighs, rocking into him. The sight of her shaking her head, hair flying around her, captured Erick even as her tight hold on his cock jammed up his mind, locking the image in place. Her beautiful body, her pert breasts with the nipples that turned up toward her God, her wide hips and thick thatch of hair masking her sex were all open to him, and he greedily ran his hands all over her. Each rock of her hips made his cock throb, and after her ministrations earlier, he was closer to release than usual.

He leaned himself up to take one breast and then the other into his mouth, allowing her to mostly set the pace. She had forbidden him to bite there, for fear that clients would see the marks and believe she was more cursed than they already did. But his fangs ached with it. He gathered her breasts with each hand and held them up to his mouth, feasting on her flesh if not on her blood. It was so different, her blood.

On a particularly sharp suck of his mouth onto her nipple, she clenched around him and groaned. Her nails cut into his back, healing almost immediately. _That's it,_ he thought. _That's my Magdalena_. The first night she'd orgasmed it had scared her so much she'd burst into tears. He'd had to convince her that a devil hadn't possessed her—that her body was that powerful, that beautiful.

She moved faster and finally Erick took control. He moved her hips on him, lifting and dropping her faster and faster.

"Gaze upon me, _mi Magdalena_," he growled. Her breath hitched and her heart skipped a beat before racing off again. Her eyes opened, shy and then determined.

"Ay, Erick," she groaned and crashed her lips onto his, her tongue pressing past his fangs and taking his mouth ruthlessly, sucking his tongue. "Ay."

He pulled her back with her hair and she growled herself. She arched and locked eyes with him.

He pressed his thumb into that magical bundle of nerves and groaned. "Drink from me. Take from me."

She shook her hair, some of it sticking to her sweat-slicked face. He looked sweet, his eyes almost desperate. She'd denied him every time, not wanting a man to be able to pursue her if she wanted to escape. That's what she understood taking his blood would do.

She looked into his eye, expecting to see what she always saw—Erick in odd-looking clothing feeding his blood to a blond woman, murmuring to her, loving her in a way she knew he did not love Magdalena herself. Instead, what she saw made her still even as the coil in her belly screamed for her to move more, faster, deeper. Erick in misery, head in hands, and then tearing through Sevilla, calling her name.

She blinked the image away, her heart swelling and breaking like the waves of the Atlantic, and swept her gaze over his face. What had changed? Something had changed to create this future. She shivered and Erick rubbed his large hand over her shoulder. She wanted to cry, for herself and for Erick.

He pulled her head down to his neck and asked again, "Drink." And then he began moving inside her again.

He felt her lips drag against his skin as she nodded. He groaned in anticipation, his thumb flying back to her nub. She panted and licked and ground her hips into his. He felt the wetness from her tongue and grunted, moving faster under her, his hips moving at a speed no human could.

She nipped his skin in warning and shivered. He hissed and flipped her over so she was under him. He needed... He needed her, needed to spill himself inside her in every way possible.

Her hands tightened on his back and Erick tensed, warning shots of pleasure echoing through him. No human had fed from him since... He closed his eyes and growled. He wouldn't think of it. He withdrew and slammed into her.

"Ay... Yesssssss," she hissed as her world narrowed to the feel of his pounding inside her body, to the feel of her lips on his plump vein. She opened her mouth and bared her teeth to the dark. She gulped in air, struggling to prepare herself for the wave... The wave that was—

"Ay! _Si... Oh si si si_!" she chanted, covering his hand over her nub with her own, moving it at a more frantic pace, her hips unable to move fast enough. Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes. She began shuddering. She began losing control of her body and just as she did, her jaws snapped shut. She tore into his skin. The inky red blood oozed onto her lips and she sucked.

A deep, guttural sigh shook the bed as Erick thrust harder, faster, growling as he felt himself enter her in every way.

"_Sí, mi Magda_," he grunted, feeling her wetness flow over him, his wetness sucked into her. He felt powerful. He felt bare. He felt... merged with this tough female, this half-_hada_ whore, who was his. He squeezed his eyes shut and bared his fangs to the room as she screamed into his ear and he felt her surrender at last, again. Holding her to him, he finally released his own control and let her sucking sex and mouth pull his seed from him. He growled into her wet, hot skin and shuddered.

"_Mi... mi... mía_," he muttered when he began to come back to himself.

She sighed heavily, dramatically as the couple rolled onto their sides. "_Sí, mi Erick. Sí..._"

Her hand lazily traced his chest, kissing her sweat from his cool skin. She cuddled into him and closed her eyes. Closed out the world and what was coming for them.

. .

. .

With quick, lithe movements, a spindly vampire dressed as a matador ushered Erick into the long, dark-stone hall lit by dozens of large torches. Theodoric was slumped on his throne at the far end, one meaty leg flung out in front of him, his hand the size of a human heart pumping into a tight fist around the hilt of his ancient sword. To his side was a human woman, her chemise unbuttoned to reveal the tops of her breasts and stained with blood where it had run from the punctures at her neck. She watched the vampire with the glassy eyes of dog waiting for a treat—unflinching, endlessly fascinated, adoring. Erick paid her no mind. He'd had pets like her.

He followed the matador to the side of the room and joined a line of other vampires prepared to swear fealty. As he waited he studied the king, looking for weaknesses, scanning his thick neck for just the right place to take off his head, the leather and metal breastplate for nicks that would allow him to slide his sword in. He found none.

It didn't matter. He had no sword. The little matador had confiscated the weapon upon entering—with the help of two hulking vampires who looked to be as old as the ancients, with low, sloped brows and tight jaws. He would get his sword back should the king accept Erick's fealty as genuine.

Erick had growled and watched as the sword was yanked from its sheath. He palmed the empty metal.

"Do you swear your existence and all you have to me, to defend me against all others, until your final death, or until I choose to release you?" the king asked in heavily accented Spanish, his vowels rotund.

Erick scoffed quietly from the back of the line. What self-respecting vampire would do this? To have a king was to have a second maker and Erick could hardly stomach the prospect. His eyes flicked to the exits and tiny windows and then alighted on the matador.

_Is this what we are to become?_ he asked himself, watching the small man in the short jacket bow and scrape as if his survival—

And that's when Erick saw the blood-clotted silver chains dangling from the ceiling, a single large silver hook at the end of each. They appeared recently used and he wondered if this was how bin Nusair met his end. His wrists twitched with the memory of silver on them and he had the impulse to rub his hand over the spot on his chest where the silver blade had stabbed him over and over again. He stood tall and still instead.

The vampire matador brought a group of vampires closer for the king's inspection. It was a small vampiress with long, red hair and two mountains of vampires standing behind her. She looked slight and the red light of the torches brought color to her pallid cheeks. Erick knew her. He'd had her. And for better or worse, she'd had him. He was sure she could sense his presence even now.

The vampiress lowered her head and knelt, the rich satin of her dress pooling around her on the blood-stained stone. "_Sí_, my liege," she said quietly. "I wish to do your service."

The king jutted his chin out and his heavy brows rose. A low, menacing chuckle whispered from his lips and he flicked one finger. His pet bounded to him and settled on her knees in front of him, staring at him. Erick knew what was next and turned away. Some show of power. Getting a pet to suck your cock was like getting a rooster to crow.

"I have one for that already," Theodoric grunted. "However, if you wish to be a pet..."

"No," the vampiress said and Erick whipped his head back around. She was standing, hands on hips, shoulders back.

This apparently got the king's attention as well, because he pushed his pet off of him and strode over to the small woman, his cock jutting into her belly. She chuckled. The mad vampiress... chuckled at a king who has sent to their final deaths mighty warriors and leaders of the largest nests in the city. And she did not budge.

Her small hand landed on his chest, petting the breastplate.

"I wish, my liege, to serve _in your court_. As a lady. I have a large and powerful nest." She gestured to the mountains of men behind her who immediately fell to their knees—for her, not for the king. "And have a talent for keeping my retinue enthralled. I can deliver the fealty of 20 vampires unto you."

Erick swallowed his grunt of disdain. He'd seen this vampiress bite the head clean off the leader of the _Lobishome_ pack. And now she bowed to another. How the mighty had fallen.

Erick forced his eyes back to the blood-stained silver swaying in the slight breeze of the open windows, concentrating on the scent of orange blossoms that mingled with the metallic tang of vampire blood.

. .

. .

Magdalena ran a wetted cloth behind her neck and down to her cleavage, wiping up her sweat and the trickle of blood left over from where Erick had fed. She looked at herself in the glass, turning her head.

The puncture marks were already gone.

Her skin was smoother, glowing with the flush of youth. Her lips pinker. Her hair glossier. Her breasts, somehow, tighter and higher on her chest. She palmed one and found it still swollen and achy from Erick's touch, the sensation transmitting to between her legs.

Erick's blood was much more powerful than she could have ever imagined.

Her eyes... She locked gaze with herself in the warped glass without intending it. She tried to never catch her own eyes. After all, knowing her own future was a burden. Knowing that fat man was going to steal her innocence, knowing that she'd end up the same as her mother... Knowing how her best friend would die...

And what she saw in her own eye now terrified her more than what she'd seen for her friend.

Fire. Flames licking up her legs, the smell of flesh and hair burning. Her own screams. She heard... _Ay Dios mío_. She heard herself begging those bastards, telling them anything they wanted to hear. Admitting she was a heretic. A blasphemer. A witch. Anything to get the pain to stop. But the vampires and the humans who watched were stone-faced. All but one. Oh no. Erick.

She dropped her cloth and it soundlessly crumpled on the floor. So did she. She sobbed—a ragged, keening sound that reminded her of her weeping when her mother had finally died. She shook. She felt the rug against her cheek and squeezed her eyes shut.

. .

. .

At the appointed time, the small vampire in the matador uniform slipped away from the tedious theatrics of the new king and found the man who would help him acquire his prize.

As he walked the city's darkened streets, he thought of how coarse the new king was. None of the elegance of a true Spaniard. None of the strategy of a king. Theodoric was a brute. A warrior. Not a true leader.

No, the small vampire thought. He would make a much better king. And tonight he began amassing the power to make it so. He'd spent months setting this up, carefully tracking the _sobrenaturales_ of Sevilla for one that might give him leverage. The fact that he found her under the care of an isolated, unprotected vampire made it almost too easy.

"A good night to you, señor," the vampire said as he fell into step with the tall, wiry man on the foot bridge over the Guadalquivir River. The vampire did not look at the human dressed in black robes and tights. In return, the human said nothing about the matador uniform the smaller man always wore. Neither did he comment on how all their meetings over the past three weeks had been conducted at night. God did work in mysterious ways. The tall man crossed himself.

"It shall be, if we can clear the city of another heretic and threat to the Holy Order," the tall human grunted. "Is your information good?"

The vampire smiled up at the human, his fangs carefully retracted. He nodded. "She is both a fornicator and a heretic. She claims to tell a man's future—which is the exclusive provenance of God. Such blasphemy must be dealt with with swift finality."

The pair stopped in front of a nondescript white building. The man raised his nose to see the women's eyes glint at him. He felt something stir further down.

"God bless you, my son," the human said, and performed the sign of the cross in front of the dead man's chest. "For this you will be delivered to the kingdom of God."

The vampire watched the man walk into the brothel and smiled, flashing fangs at the whores on the stoop.

He would be delivered a kingdom, indeed.

. .

. .

Magdalena gathered herself, plumped her breasts and walked to the door of her work chamber. Her 9 o'clock appointment would be here momentarily. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. She would forget the flames, the smells, the eyes... all those eyes watching her burn.

Futures can change, but death couldn't, she reminded herself. She'd seen it happen. Once, she'd seen that Soledad would die of that terrible affliction, the sex death as it was known around the whorehouse. Magdalena had seen her go mad and confined to a bed, leather straps bruising her, well-meaning medical men trying to whip the devil out of her.

She'd told her and begged her to run away with her to the country. She wanted to spare her friend such a fate.

Soledad had refused to leave, but she'd also refused to see any more customers. Then the minder of the house, that old brute of a woman Esperanza, had beaten Soledad so badly that her body bent unnaturally when she was lifted. She'd lived for 30 minutes more, and clasped Magdalena's hand, shaking her head. She knew Magdalena was blaming herself.

She still blamed herself.

Maybe it was her time.

She opened the door.

. .

. .

"How do I know I can trust you, _my lady_?" the king sneered. "You fought for the Vandal vampiress Eudocia. I dare say you desire to see a woman on this throne. How do I know you won't seek it for yourself?"

The vampiress kept her eyes locked on the king and lowered her small hand to rub on the king's flagging erection. He grunted. His eyes fluttered but he kept them on her.

"Give me your blood," she purred. "You will always find me. You will always know my desires. You will see that I am genuine."

She lowered her chin but kept looking at the king through her lashes. A small smile tugged at her lips and one fang dug into her pillowy bottom lip.

. .

. .

"Ah, Señorita Magdalena," the tall man said as he dipped his head down and brushed his lips across the back of her hand. "I have heard much about you."

She concentrated on his shiny scalp, though she knew he was looking at her. When he rose to his full height, which had to rival Erick's, she continued to dodge his gaze, instead focusing on the mole on his right jowl the size of a piece of silver. From it sprouted three long, gnarled hairs.

This was her policy. She didn't look into their eyes until the silver was in her palm.

She bowed and lowered her head and moved back to allow him entry. There was a narrow bed, as there was in every working chamber in the brothel. But in her chamber, there was also a small writing desk and it was here that she directed the man to sit. She eyed his narrow hips and long, spider-like arms, his knobby knees. She knew this man. Señor de Morillo had moved to Sevilla a decade before to adjudicate the Holy Office—the tribunal that was ferreting out false _conversos_—those Jews who had converted but were not pious to their new religion.

As a devout Catholic, she thought their work was righteous.

As a part-_hada_ psychic, she knew to keep her gaze low and to lower herself to her knees between his splayed legs. Her heart thumped wildly in her throat, but soon was replaced with something else.

. .

. .

Erick inched forward in line as the two Cro-Magnon guards who had taken Erick's sword hoisted a vampire onto the silver hooks. He'd admitted to fighting for bin Nusair. He'd admitted to killing some of Theodoric's troops. Needless to say, the king did not believe his claims of fealty.

The vampire screamed as the hook tore into his flesh and held him there. A few minutes later, a pool of sluggish blood formed under him. He sobbed embarrassingly and Erick turned away.

The king was watching his minion's reaction to this form of persuasion. In his human days, he had put heads on spikes to warn enemies away. Today, if he severed a vampire's skull from his body, the whole thing turned to an unruly pile of ash. A silver hook was the best solution. How the Vandal would-be queen had disapproved of that. He smirked and turned his eyes back to the line of vampires and prepared himself to be worshiped.

Erick stepped forward and lowered his head, stilling the muscles that itched for a sword. "My king, I come to swear fealty."

Just then, Erick flinched, feeling a jolt of panic surge and then recede. It had been so long since he'd given another his blood it took a moment for him to realize the emotion was not his own.

. .

. .

With relief, Magdalena ushered the good Inquisitor from her chamber. She was a few pieces of silver richer and her sex was sore from where he had taken her on her stomach against the hard, narrow bed. She had promised Erick otherwise, but he would understand. He would have to.

She shivered as she shut the door with a shaky hand. She'd had his blood now. He could track her. With a panic that sent a wave of nausea through her, she realized now that that vision of Erick searching for her could have been because she'd finally escaped to the country.

_Carajo_. She'd been a fool.

For all Erick's kindness for the past two decades, for all she had wanted him—genuinely wanted a man after what had been done to her—he was still a man. And he would want to possess her. She should have refused as she always did.

She jumped a little when another knock came to her door. As she unlatched it, a tiny man in a _capote de paseo_—the dress cape of the men who fight the bulls—stood in front of her with regal bearing, one foot cocked slightly in front of the other and shoulders back. He seemed much taller than he was.

She moved to the side and let him in. In her line of work, one did not refuse a man. Ever.

She curtsied to him and noticed as he stalked gracefully into the room that he sniffed slightly.

She watched him as he turned back to her and smiled.

Vampire.

She relaxed slightly. After all, the supernatural world was a small one, and her gift was an open secret to the right people. Erick had sent others in the past—well-known and respected vampires—and they had honored the fact that she was his. _His_. She shook her head. She used to think smugly about how she'd never had his blood. Now she truly was his.

"_Señorita Magdalena_," he said with a flourished bow.

"Señor...?"

"Ah," he said rising up, smiling fangily. "Señor Felipe de Castro, señorita. I believe you belong to Erick—Señor el Rubio? He suggested I visit you. You see, I have a problem that I think you might be able to help me... see my way through, _sí_?"

Magdalena smiled and felt her shoulders relax. She smirked and pointed to her left eye. "_Ah sí_," she said, chuckling and gesturing that he should sit on the hastily remade bed. "I may be... convinced to help one such as you. As Erick's friend, of course."

She lowered her chin and raised a brow, looking the vampire right in the nose. Noses were as unique as people. And this nose, narrow and then bulbous at the end, she would recognize anywhere.

She sat and raised her skirts, exposing a long length of leg. The vampire's eyes traced her skin as he pulled a purse of silver from his vestments. He placed it in her palm and she rolled it around, enjoying its weight and its implication. There must have been 30 coins in there. Enough for a carriage out of town. Enough for all the oranges she could eat.

She tried not to let her excitement show. She studied the black velvet pouch and asked, "A weighty problem, then, no?" She glanced up at his nose and the nostrils flared. She smiled. "Tell me what I can help you with. It will guide me."

So he spoke and she studied the bag. He explained that he had been made vampire 30 years before. He'd been a strong fighter in the ring, killing many bulls, enjoying the blood. He loved being a vampire. He wished for greatness among his kind and worried about the rise of the new vampire monarchies. He wished direction for how to proceed.

When she looked him in the eyes he was studying her face. He was amused. She was so serious, but did she not think he could see the trace of a smile on her face? Did she think herself free of the vampires because one vampire had claimed her? He could not believe her rashness to sit alone with a vampire to whom she did not belong. Surely Erick did not allow this. And if he did, maybe he deserved what was coming.

"I see," she smirked. She dropped the bag and took his face between her palms, a move that made the vampire shrink back. But her hands were surprisingly strong and held him in place. She locked eyes with him finally, and she was surprised to find that they were the color of burnt sugar, liquid and boiling.

She took in a deep breath.

"You will be king," she breathed, seeing him in odd clothes and a cape that floated down his back. She saw that in privacy he put on a crown and marched around his grand estate like a boy king. A very, very dangerous boy. "You will have many territories and carry out many raids. This is far in the future, I believe. I do not recognize the dress. You will travel by air, but not on your own power. There will be great silver beasts to carry you. Do not trust your second in command. He will betray you. He will..."

She coughed and quickly covered. "He will attempt to overstep your authority. You will have a hard time controlling him since your territory will be so wide. Listen to Erick. He will reveal the truth."

She blinked and looked again at his nose, which twitched slightly from his smile.

"And how, señorita? How will I achieve this? Is there anything I need to know?"

She looked from the pouch of silver, thinking of how striking Erick looked in this future, in his close-fitting garments—with that blond woman—and gazed at the vampire's eyes.

She blinked rapidly at what she saw. She saw women. Many women. Women like her, chained and shackled and used as pawns in his games.

_Ay Dios mío._ She saw...

She shot up from her seat and sprinted to the door, but the vampire got to her first. As she knew he would.

. .

. .

The king leaned forward on his sword, eyeing the blond vampire in front of him with disdain. He was a good 500 years younger than Theodoric, and the young vampire's disgust at the new order rolled off him in waves. Clearly, his maker had spent too much time teaching him to feed and not enough to hide his ego.

"You did not choose a side in the war for the crown," he said, eyes narrowing.

Erick kept his head down and lowered to one knee. "No, my liege," he bit out.

"Why? You are a warrior. You have participated in other wars. I have seen you myself." He looked up the blond vampire's flank, noticing how the thigh muscles twitched. The vampire wanted to launch himself at Theodoric. He'd been sizing him up for battle all night. The king laughed. "Were you afraid?"

This got the reaction the king wanted. Erick tensed all over, his jaw flexing just once, but enough to reveal his offense.

"Not afraid, no, my liege."

The king chuckled softly. "Do you swear your existence and all you have to me, to defend me against all others, until your final death, or until I choose to release you?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what, Norseman?"

Erick swallowed his bile and spoke clearly. "Yes, my king."

The king leaned forward and held his large onyx ring for Erick to kiss, enjoying how the young vampire fought a flinch. Erick leaned forward and placed his lips on the jewel.

The king stood and sauntered toward his new subject, the Norse fighter. He took the vampire's head in the palm of his hand and jerked it to the side, revealing his thickly roped neck. Then he gently brushed Erick's hair away from the skin. His vein popped against the muscle.

The king chuckled and grasped Erick by the nape of the neck, jostling him.

"Pity you did not fight in my camp." Erick stayed silent. "Tell me, do you desire a place in my court? You would be a great asset to me."

Erick rankled against being another vampire's anything. His turmoil was intense, stronger than it should have been in this situation. He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes at the stone floor in front of him, wishing he could yell—

. .

. .

"No!"

Magdalena bit and scratched at the vampire, tearing wounds that healed immediately and only made the vampire more angry. He'd managed to dislocate her left shoulder and she was grateful to have had Erick's blood, hoping it would heal her faster.

As the pair grappled—Felipe was shocked at how strong she was for a human—she landed one strong punch to his jaw, cutting his tongue nearly off and sending him to the ground.

She unlatched the door and sprinted down the hall, praying that Erick would find her. Praying that she could think of a place to go. She knew she had almost no time.

When she reached the stoop, Señor de Morillo was waiting for her. She kicked him so hard between the legs that she heard something crack and kept going.

Her leg was bleeding. The warm, orange blossom-tinged air burned in her lungs. Her shoulder was beginning to prickle and ache. Tears dried as they traced thin lines down her cheeks.

She didn't care. She was going to fight. She might be doomed to the bonfire, but she wasn't going to go easily. She made a right at the end of the block and headed for the bridge. She knew where to go.

All the time she prayed to the sweet Virgin Mother for forgiveness and mercy.

. .

. .

"You honor me with your the offer, my liege," Erick said carefully, his body a series of muscles coiled tightly for attack or defense. He was confused—panicked but disdainful, an odd mix that made this all the harder. "But I am no good to you as a lord."

The king leaned down, now grasping Erick's neck more tightly. While he couldn't die of strangulation, Theodoric knew well how uncomfortable it was to have your spine crushed and wait for it to regrow.

"I do honor you, Norseman. And you offend with your impertinence."

As his vision wavered and his neck contracted, Erick thought back to first dark on the balcony. He wished he could be there again, free of this posturing. Back with his Magdalena, back to enjoying the orange blossoms. Theodoric knew very well that Erick could fight and would if he swore it—he'd always been loyal once he'd picked a side—but he did not wish to be any deeper into the power structure than he already was. He was a fighter, not a politician.

"Use me," Erick said clearly. "But as a foot soldier."

He chanced a look at the king, locking eyes with him. "On my continued existence, I swear my sword for your cause. I will use it at any provocation to protect those to whom I am loyal."

. .

. .

Magdalena shot across the Puente de Triana bridge at a dead run, her bear feet pounding the boards in time with the thundering of hear heart. All she could hear was her hitched breaths and all she could see was the cobbled stone in front of her. She didn't spare a glance for the shopkeepers or the old ladies at their doors. Her long strides splashed through drifts of refuse, the sewage staining the hem of her dress and trickling up her calves. She didn't have time to dodge it.

She was focused on making it to the trees, the orange groves so green and glossy and robust, the branches reaching out and grasping one another in temporary walls of foliage. She'd hidden in them as a child. She knew where to hide in it now. She cut to the right, her thighs burning with the effort and her feet pared by the dry, warm dirt, hard as stone.

There at the end of the row was a stand of almond trees. They were perfect. They were now so heavy with fruit that they were practically impenetrable by the human eye—and, she hoped, the vampire eye. As a child, she and Soledad had climbed them, had worn notches into the trunks so they could go higher.

Her foot hit the first well-worn knot that served as a ladder step and she was pushing up, scrambling desperately. And then she wasn't. Then, suddenly she was being pulled away from the tree and was falling by a mysterious force. Her burning muscles contracted into painful cramps and she curled in on herself even as the man looming over her laughed.

"Only the guilty run, señorita. Only the guilty run."

. .

. .

The king pulled Erick up, the two men grasping forearms.

"You are a fool, Norseman," Theodoric said. "Five hundred years and still playing the nomad—dare I say, the lone wolf?" The crowd laughed and Erick's back burned to knock the king to the floor and twist his thick head from his body.

The king returned to his throne and threw himself back against it, the wood creaking under his weight. "I won't make the offer again. And I find myself doubting your fealty."

He eyed the young vampire and inclined his head expectantly.

. .

. .

Felipe de Castro approached the guard of the Holy Office of the Inquisition slowly, savoring his quarry's suffering. He watched her back arch as a stab of pain traveled from her hip to her knee, contracting her leg at an awkward angle.

For you see, Magdalena's focus had been so intense that she hadn't heard the cries of the guard. Hadn't heard their footfalls as a dozen men armed with swords and rapiers chased after one surprisingly fast woman.

The honorable Señor de Morillo finally arrived beside him, looking down at her with his long arms folded within his robes judiciously.

"She is fast," he said, his gravelly voice dour. "Too fast to be human. It must be the devil in her."

He kicked her and enjoyed the wet sound of her coughing up her own blood.

Felipe smiled a closed mouth smile, seeing as he couldn't will his fangs away. The smell of her blood reminded him of how a human smelled just before they were completely drained. He got hard in his tights and shifted behind the holy Inquisitor's robes. He couldn't wait.

He put his hand on the human's shoulder and turned him easily toward him.

Locking eyes with the Inquisitor, he said, "Yes. We will extract a confession from her. Let me have her for an hour."

. .

. .

"To you I pledge my fealty and my sword," Erick finally said for the third time, loud enough for the king's liking. "I will fight to defend your kingdom and will be a faithful member of your retinue."

Erick was just rising from the floor when he felt his Magdalena's presence. He'd been trying to ignore the panic and rage that had washed through him all night. But now it exploded within him. She was not supposed to be here. This was not right. In the dull light, his already pale skin lost all color. It was as if he'd never fed, not once.

But there in the corner, covered in bruises, her clothes torn, one breast nearly exposed, was his Magdalena.

At once they cried out to each other and just as quickly Magdalena's voice cracked and keened as her dislocated arm was wrenched back tightly behind her. He sniffed. She was bleeding. And he wasn't the only one to notice. Theodoric—former Visigoth commander, bester of an ancient Moors and Vandals and Huns in the 10-year vampire war—turned his thick-jawed head toward her and sniffed. A pleased growl rumbled from his throat.

"She is mine," Erick thundered, moving to her at vampire speed—

—Only to be stopped by the king. The hand on his chest was like a silver anvil. If he had needed to breathe, the air would have been knocked out of him.

From behind his beautiful Magdalena came the tiny matador, his grin wide and his fangs long.

"What is yours is now the kingdom's, Norseman," sneered the little matador. Erick studied him as he ran the back of his fingers over Magdalena's neck and down to the top of her chemise, pulling it down as he pinched her nipple between his fingers. Magdalena's face was blank. Terrifyingly, studiously, angrily blank. Blank as it had been when he'd found her. A blankness he swore to himself he'd remove from her face. "... To do with as we may."

The king leaned in close and patted Erick's chest. "She smells delicious, Erick. I can see why you have kept her." He smiled down at Erick, his narrow amber eyes threatening. "Do you mind if I have a taste?"

Magdalena's eyes shot to Erick's for a brief moment, full of warning.

Completely compulsory, Erick growled low in his throat and bumped chests with the king.

"She is mine. She is under my protection."

The two vampires locked eyes for a long moment before the small vampire laughed, a low, melodious, frightfully delighted sound.

"And what protection is that, Norseman?" asked Felipe, bringing his fingers up to his mouth and tasting the blood that had gathered there. His eyes blazed. "She is special this one. In fact, master," the small vampire turned to the towering king, and Erick flinched to hear any vampire call another master unless they were maker and child. "She is so special that she is gifted. She is _hada_. And a psychic. I can attest to this personally."

The king's face grew jubilant and he clapped his hands together.

"Is this so?" he asked her.

"Fuck you," she grunted and then spat at him. One mountain of a vampire quickly quieted her by punching her jaw so hard it broke with a sickening crack.

The king turned back to Erick and, with a swift nod toward the silver chains, muttered, "You are now my loyal subject, are you not, Norseman?"

Erick growled deep, watching as more of Magdalena's precious blood dripped from her mouth. He did a quick calculation, his eyes roaming from his woman to the vampire still dripping blood from the silver hook, to the escape routes and to the four vampires standing in front of him.

The calculations were untenable. He could not save her. Only himself. He looked back at Magdalena, begging her to understand.

"_Si, mi rey_," he bit out through clenched teeth. He listened, but Magdalena did not make a sound. He risked a glance and saw her watching him, her jaw cocked at an unnatural angle. Her eyes were full of something, some emotion. He could not read it.

Through the aching of her jaw, she wanted to tell the vampires to go to hell. She wanted to tell the king that from the moment he looked in her eyes she could see that he would survive only another few years, that one of his own would seek to topple him.

And she cursed herself. She trusted Felipe. She had let her guard down and it had done her in. Death was coming for her. She heard the wings of Lechuza already.

But Felipe noticed none of this. He simply sidled up to Erick, his slim hip swaying in his tights. "You have no nest. No position in this kingdom." Felipe turned to the king. "We can hardly trust this... nomadic, solitary vampire to keep such a rare asset out of the hands of our enemies, master."

"_Cierto_," nodded the king. "What do you suggest?"

Before Felipe started speaking, Magdalena knew her fate.

As soon as he did, Erick roared and threw himself at the tiny vampire, fangs bared, ready to behead him with his teeth if he had to. He couldn't allow it. He couldn't—

Erick was hoisted onto the silver hook above at the king's decree and Magdalena began to cry silent tears. Her fate was clear. Instead of being burned at the stake, she would die here. Tonight. She would be reborn a vampire in servitude to this vicious king and his ruthless minion.

She felt the stab of the tiny vampire's fangs in her neck. As the dank room grew dark and her body became colder and the small conniving vampire grunted and rutted into her, she vowed to herself that she would lie. She would guide them into every perilous battle. She would tell the king to trust the untrustworthy. She would hasten his final death, and, with any luck, hers as well.

And she would, somehow, relinquish Erick. She didn't know why she thought it—she'd never trusted men and she had never thought she'd trusted Erick—but she thought as her life slipped from her that she loved Erick. She had loved him and had trusted him. She thought of their time together this night. She thought of the first night he came to her and his dogged attempts to give her an orgasm. She thought of every time he took her to another part of the Península. She thought of the sun on her skin. She breathed in one last lungful of the orange blossoms, and let go of her life before.

. .

. .

When Erick was finally lowered from the silver hook an hour before dawn, he was so weak from blood loss and so gray from silver that he slumped to the floor. He wanted to drag himself into the sun after what he'd borne witness to tonight—what he'd allowed to happen.

The cool dew on his skin would be nice just before the sun set it on fire. He closed his eyes, willing himself up and out into the courtyard. It would serve the king right—a death on his grounds.

It must have been the blood loss talking, because Erick had wanted to survive just a few hours before. He shook himself, but he couldn't make himself move, couldn't escape the fantasy.

"On your feet, Norseman." The voice was soft, melodic, and so surprised Erick he turned his head in its direction. Suddenly his arms were lifted and he felt the cool slickness of the wet stones behind him.

Then a warm, fragrant neck was placed against his mouth and his whole body jerked in reaction. His fangs came out, his arms wrapped tight around his prey and, as he took the first long draw, he swiveled his hips into the skirts in front of him.

When he had finally drunk his fill, he released and stood on his own. To his surprise, when the body of the pet was taken away, it was the small vampiress standing before him.

"I didn't figure you for a romantic, Norseman," she said, arms crossed before her. "Now come with me. We have scant time before dawn—and contrary to what you may think, you do not wish to meet it."

"Sophie-Ann," he grunted, wiping his mouth, a cold numbness subsuming the heat of the blood he'd just taken. "Or is it Señorita Sofia, eh?"

She smiled and nodded. "You will come with me. To my nest. I will put you under my protection. And you will serve under the monarchy."

When he stopped walking, she turned and peered at him, impatient.

"Honestly, Erick—how do you expect to survive in this new era?" She waved her hand around the near-empty court. "Vampire kings—and perhaps queens one day—require not just foot soldiers but lords and ladies." She placed her delicate-looking, lethal hand on her chest, just below a strand of rubies. "And those lords and ladies set their own agendas. Had you learned that earlier, your little pet might still be with you."

Erick studied her for a minute, considering. She was about his age. How did she become so politically wise?

"These lords and ladies—they are free?" he ventured.

She shrugged. "As free as you can be in this world."

Finally, Erick approached her, pulling her forearm into a warrior's handshake. His eyes bore into her, a new purpose lighting them.

"What do I have to do?"


End file.
